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Nigeria election: INEC reveals what will happen to electoral offenders

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday
called for decisive actions against electoral offenders in the country.

The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said this at the
Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room Stakeholders’ Forum on Future of Elections
in Nigeria, organised by a Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), in
Abuja.

Yakubu, who was represented by Mr Festus Okoye, INEC’s
National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee,
said the commission was in full support of the establishment of Electoral
Offences Commission to punish offenders.

“It is time to take decisive action to break the cycle of
impunity through the promulgation of an Electoral Offences Commission/Tribunal
to handle matters relating to electoral offences.

“The commission has made it clear that it lacks the capacity
and wherewithal to continue the prosecution of electoral offenders.

“And it is for this reason that the commission supports and
will continue to support the creation of an Electoral Offences
Commission/Tribunal to process, arrest, investigate and prosecute electoral
offenders,’’ he said.

Yakubu said that INEC was set to design strategies to
checkmate the act of vote buying and selling.

He said that vote buying and vote selling did not only
undermine the cardinal democratic principles of representation, accountability
and participation but compromised the inalienable rights of voters to free
choice.

Yakubu said that the commission redesigned the entire
environment where polling units were located to ensure that vote buyers did not
gain access to the voters and compromise the secrecy of the votes in the 2019
elections.

He said that the more the commission tried to put in
measures to ensure that the secrecy of the votes was not compromised, some of
the politicians also designed new methods of compromising the secrecy of the
votes.

“So I believe that both the civil society groups and organisations,
the media, the security agencies and all the critical stakeholders must work in
synergy to make sure that the secrecy of the vote is protected at all times.

“I believe that guaranteeing the secrecy of the vote and
making sure that the votes count is not only the function of INEC but it
involves all the critical stakeholders in the election process.’’

Mr Clement Nwankwo, convener of Situation Room, said that
the elections came with a lot of irregularities and raised questions that CSOs
needed answers to, such as the postponement of elections few hours to polls.

He said that there were situations where election officials
were left fearing for their lives and being threatened or in most cases brutalised
by the military.

According to him, in most cases the nature of voter
suppression deliberately disenfranchises many voters.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on
Monday called for decisive actions against electoral offenders in the country.

The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said this at the
Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room Stakeholders’ Forum on Future of Elections
in Nigeria, organised by a Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), in
Abuja.

Yakubu, who was represented by Mr Festus Okoye, INEC’s
National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee,
said the commission was in full support of the establishment of Electoral
Offences Commission to punish offenders.

“It is time to take decisive action to break the cycle of
impunity through the promulgation of an Electoral Offences Commission/Tribunal
to handle matters relating to electoral offences.

“The commission has made it clear that it lacks the capacity
and wherewithal to continue the prosecution of electoral offenders.

“And it is for this reason that the commission supports and
will continue to support the creation of an Electoral Offences
Commission/Tribunal to process, arrest, investigate and prosecute electoral
offenders,’’ he said.

Yakubu said that INEC was set to design strategies to
checkmate the act of vote buying and selling.

He said that vote buying and vote selling did not only
undermine the cardinal democratic principles of representation, accountability
and participation but compromised the inalienable rights of voters to free
choice.

Yakubu said that the commission redesigned the entire
environment where polling units were located to ensure that vote buyers did not
gain access to the voters and compromise the secrecy of the votes in the 2019
elections.

He said that the more the commission tried to put in
measures to ensure that the secrecy of the votes was not compromised, some of
the politicians also designed new methods of compromising the secrecy of the
votes.

“So I believe that both the civil society groups and
organisations, the media, the security agencies and all the critical
stakeholders must work in synergy to make sure that the secrecy of the vote is
protected at all times.

“I believe that guaranteeing the secrecy of the vote and
making sure that the votes count is not only the function of INEC but it
involves all the critical stakeholders in the election process.’’

Mr Clement Nwankwo, convener of Situation Room, said that
the elections came with a lot of irregularities and raised questions that CSOs
needed answers to, such as the postponement of elections few hours to polls.

He said that there were situations where election officials
were left fearing for their lives and being threatened or in most cases
brutalised by the military.

According to him, in most cases the nature of voter
suppression deliberately disenfranchises many voters.

He said that with the elections haven gone the way they did,
it was a good opportunity for the electorate to begin to ask questions, not to
blame people but talk about people taking responsibility for some failures.

“On the part of civil society, yes we must take
responsibility for not finding a mechanism of investigating and reporting on
the assurances that INEC was giving to us so; we were all caught napping.

“On the part of INEC, I think there is a huge important need
for it to take responsibility for failures that are very manifest and blatant
and unacceptable.

“And one of those failures is the nature, quality and
character of the voter register that we have in Nigeria today.

“We did have a situation where INEC reported a voter
register of about 84 million and then suddenly this decreased just before the
elections.

“And then there were discrepancies regarding the numbers
that were actually supposed to be on the voter register.’’

Nwankwo said that Nigeria could not afford to continue in
the light of that direction.

He said there was an important need for reflections on what
needed to be done to pull the nation back from the depth into which it had sunk
and to save democracy.

“As citizens of the country we have a responsibility to pull
this back and that is why we are asking for a review and questions as to what
happened in the 2019 elections because it was not what we asked for.

“What we saw in 2019 elections was not the election ns were
promised and when people begin to say what is the comparison between 2015 and
2019 I must tell you that 2019 was a relapse compared to 2015.’’

Nwankwo urged INEC to launch an investigation into what
happened in the 2019 elections to join forces with CSOs to ask questions on
what happened.

Prof. Okey Ibeanu, INEC National Commissioner, said that the
commission had logistics challenges due to the complex nature of the nation’s
electoral process.

Ibeanu said that for instance, ballots papers were printed
in currency quality from abroad and so transportation alone was a great
challenge.

He advised that going forward, there was need to consider
the discentralisation of the electoral process for effective management.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Nigeria
Army, Police, Civil Defense and the Inter-party Advisory Committee (IPAC) also
attended to share their experiences.

It would seem from available accounts that the earliest form of Western-style
health care in Nigeria was provided by doctors brought by explorers and traders
to cater for their own well being.[2] The services were not available to the
indigenes.